Saturday, September 7, 2013

This is our fifth and final box, for the time being. So far she has gotten bored of them, so I won't be updating the boxes until she does. At which time, I will gladly share the new boxes!

It is quite possible, that this box was Emmelyn's favorite one! Probably because of the beads!

Our 5th Busy Box contained: Pipe cleaners, pony beads, ocean puzzle, small erasers, magnetic shapes, two tweezers, and Usborne's Max and Millie Start School book. As always, the metal cookie sheet is next to the busy boxes to be used for all of them.

As I said, this was her favorite part of the box! She played with the beads for nearly an hour. We made bracelets and a necklace!

They used the tweezers to pick up the small erasers. This is still hard for her to do, maybe because of the size of the erasers, they're a little big. She finds it easier to pick up the pom poms and smaller items like that. (I found the erasers at the dollar store)

They also enjoyed making patterns and pictures out of the shapes on the cookie sheet. (Shapes were found at the dollar store)

Thank you for checking out all of our busy boxes! I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback!

I apologize for the delay in sharing our fourth busy box! I don't get on the computer often, unless I really need to, so I sometimes forget to update my blog. We played with our fourth box a while ago and just like the other three before, it was a success!

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Our third box's theme is all about letters! In this box I have included our alphabet puzzle, two books, magnetic alphabet pieces, a measuring cup, measuring scoop, two tweezers, cotton balls as our sensory item, and some plastic cups. The cookie sheet is always next to the bins, for use.

My daughter loves the cotton balls and actually calls them "marshmallows." Too cute! She enjoyed scooping the "marshmallows" and filling the containers.

Once she had her fill with the cotton balls, she wanted to do the puzzle.

She adores the Usborne's Lift-the-flap Word Book and so do I! What a great learning tool! In the first picture, she would lift a flap and find the corresponding picture on the left page. On the second picture, under the flaps of the children are words for what they are doing. On the bottom are those words again, when you lift those flaps you will see a smaller picture of children doing those actions.

That's if for our third busy box, stay tuned to find out what's in the next ones!

Monday, August 12, 2013

Thank you for stopping by to check out our second busy box! If you missed our first busy box, check it out here!

This box's theme is "Numbers!" Again, we have a puzzle, two books, and a sensory item, in this case it is rice. Which is very messy, but you can pick it up and vacuum the rest. No big deal. Our classroom carpet is old and low grade, so it's easy to clean up. Most of her mess stays on the cookie sheet. We also have flash cards in this bin, just because I have them, but we never use them. She does like to play with cards, though. I have included magnetic numbers (Dollar Tree), Counting Bears, Tweezers, cups for sorting, and a small strainer. (10pk of cups and strainer also found at Dollar Tree.)

One of the books I have included is this Lift the flaps Counting Book. (I am an Usborne consultant and love their books for homeschool!) This book is great and we both love it!

She first started using the cups for sorting her bears by colors! (There are six colors to the bears, but the orange and red are very close and it's hard for her to tell the difference at this point, so she ended up combining them.)

And then she saw the rice!! The cups became great scoops and the bears went for a swim in the rice! Her brother thought this was fun, so he joined in.

It wasn't long before all the bears were in the strainer, taking a swim.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Today, I will be sharing with you what is in our first busy box. These items will all be rotated out every few weeks, or if I find she's bored with them.

Box one is a "Farm Theme" box! She was very thrilled to see this box, yesterday. She had no idea I was making these for her. Now the barn is something I made for them earlier this summer and does not go inside the box. I just bring it down for her to play with.

Each of my five busy boxes will include one puzzles, 1-2 books, one container of sensory items (in this case, rocks) and two large tweezers. One for her and one for myself or her brother to play along with her, if needed. The tweezers were found on amazon, here and the farm animals are these. The rocks we are using as a sensory we found at the Dollar Tree, as well as, the erasers and little mickey character figures. She was VERY excited about Mickey being in this box. I know, not really farm related, but I figured she could have them ride the animals or work on the farm.

The tweezers are great to practice those fine motor skills! She practiced picking up the erasers and rocks, which were kind of slippery. Next to where I store the busy boxes I keep this cookie sheet (Dollar Tree) to help contain any messes. Plus some boxes contain magnets.

After I was done helping my son with science for the day, I sat and read the books to my daughter and we used the characters to make the book more fun. She loved this!

All in all, this box was a total hit! All of the items in the box, we already had around the house! So, double success! I hope this helps you build your own busy box! Stay tuned for the rest of our busy boxes! Oh, the containers were found at Target for $2.50ish. They were on sale.

Usborne Books

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About Me

I am a 28 year old military wife and mother of two. My husband has been in the Air Force for over nine years now; eight of which we've been married! We have a 6 year old son, Landon and a 2 year daughter, Emmelyn. We recently PCSd from Offutt AFB, NE to Bolling AFB DC. We bought our first house and are in our second year of homeschool. We eat clean and I enjoy DIY projects!
Thanks for stopping by.